Survivor Testimony: Sandhill Center

THIS STORY WAS ANONYMOUSLY PROVIDED BY A SURVIVOR

"I can say Sandhill Center may not have been as horrifying as what I hear about as places like Elan. I can say it was a 'diet version' of your typical TTI program. But does that mean Sandhill was a good facility? Not at all.

I hope to emphasize here, why there are no 'good TTI programs', no matter how much they attempt to manipulate and assure to you they are not like the others. The bottom line is, if any 'treatment' they suggest to you involves sending your child away without their choice for months on end, you should know you are being preyed on and gaslit. I just want to put out there that if there were any TTI programs you went to that may not have been the worst of the worst, it still isn't a place that is trying to help you.

It wasn’t like I had a choice to come to Sandhill, because I was sent here against my will by bad actors who gaslit the heck out of my parents. To them, my parents were talking wallets.

It should be obvious to anyone who’s aware of the TTI that the reason these places don’t help your kids is because they’re not supposed to. Even if Sandhill wasn’t as bad as places like Elan or Ivy Ridge, that doesn’t mean you were here to be helped. You think isolating a kid miles away from their family helps any relationship get better? No, you are there as a child ransom, while these phony staff pocket your parent’s money. That’s right, your stay here is supposed to only be 12 months but they can tack on as much time as they want as long as your parents are still fooled into paying for it. Most discharges here happened because kids got too old for them to exploit in New Mexico, so they just sent them to other TTI programs in other states where age of consent was higher!

Sandhill only had two 'rules' that were posted on bulletin boards:

1.      No touching others without permission

2.      Let staff know where you are at all times

However, all the other actual rules were called 'expectations' instead, and these were never clearly explained. As such, staff were allowed to change the rules on the fly. Additionally, since you were not allowed to see staff regulations either, you could not call out a staff member who was attempting to abuse their power on their violation.

EVERY action you wanted to do, you had to ask permission for. You had to "ask for everything you need and want." Even using the bathroom and getting water, everything was pending staff approval. This often made completing school work difficult. You had little to no choices, whatever staff said you were doing, you were going to do it or be punished. Everything at Sandhill was picked for you. They didn't teach you that you had to make difficult decisions as an adult or anything!

As for punishments, it was very corporal and physical at times. The first step was the 'time-out seat'. This meant you couldn’t partake in activities. Staff would say “take a seat!” and you could be on there anywhere from 15 minutes, to potentially greater than 24 hours. There wasn’t a specific solitary confinement room thankfully, but you’d still be off to the side as everyone else lived their abnormal life. If you were on there for more than 24 hours, you’d be told “you’re still on a seat” next morning.

To get off the seat, the staff who put you there had to come up whenever they felt like it and ask “why are you on that seat?”. Then, you had to provide an answer they wanted to hear, regardless as to whether or not it was true. Get it wrong, and your seat is extended. They called this 'processing the seat'. Staff were often forgetful, and if they went off shift, they had to 'transfer' the seat’s responsibility to another staff. So your 'correct answer' would get marred.

If you defied the seat, you would get put into a restraining hold where they would cross your arms like you’re in a straitjacket. This was the physical abuse. Now Sandhill’s staff claimed they would only do this if you got physically violent. Bull. Staff could do these restraining holds as much as they wanted, simply because you insulted them under your breath. Sometimes they would forego the seat and just go straight to the hold. They could happen back-to-back, and as long as the staff didn’t slap or punch you, they technically weren’t breaking 'regulations'.

Often in a restraining hold, there’d be constant crying and screaming as the staff would endlessly hurl insults at you on what a 'bad kid' you were. They’d only let go if you 'calmed down'. We just accepted this like it was a normal everyday occurrence. We would often rank the staff by how awful their restraining holds were.

Now rarely, if two kids formed a strong enough rivalry, some staff would make the two sing the 'best friends forever' song and force both of you to do every activity together, wait for the other to finish using the bathroom, and sit on a dual time-out seat all day long. This wasn’t consistently enforced; it was all up to staff whims.

Also rarely, they could “Private Pyle” a kid. This means that if that kid misbehaved, they would punish everyone else instead of them by making us run laps around the horse corral. That kid would still misbehave, and we'd run them again and again until our legs were sore.

Sandhill did not have an explicit level system that they made you aware of. At least not one that was visible to the children nor had any kind of points. Their pseudo-level system was just 'trust'. I remember kids being told the way to get out of Sandhill was to work on your trust with the staff. They would often say “we don’t trust you” for your first several months.

For your first MONTH of Sandhill, you had to be within arms reach of a staff at all times. You couldn’t partake in many activities. It was possible to be demoted to this level and this happened to me several times.

Even then, Sandhill’s rules and structure were all still designed around the expectation that you were always going to attempt to make the wrong decisions, weasel out of responsibility, and lie to your parents, no matter how much you 'progressed'. Yet you were expected to 'trust' them.

Staff were always looking for ways to push your buttons, then use your retaliation behavior as an excuse to why you had to stay longer.

Every month kids had a pass with their parents. These started as just simply seeing them in person for an hour, as your therapist there would spew their TTI indoctrine nonsense to them. They would level you up to being able to go to a nearby hotel with them for a day, to a week, but your parents would report the experience. Your pass privileges would be downgraded if they found out you misbehaved on them.

There was the fabled 'home pass' which I did finally get, but they would send a staff to stay near your house to monitor the visit.

To use the phone, you had an approved contact list, mostly just parents. (I think only parents in my case.) You couldn’t make calls, only receive them. Staff would come and say “phone call for you!” then monitor said call, hanging up if you spoke ill of Sandhill or told  your parents you wanted to come home. The monitoring was inconsistent. You could not contact emergency or legal services by your volition.

 Now as a grown adult, I have late-bloomed heavily. It hasn’t been until recent years that I’ve even considered getting help or let alone trying school again, after the slew of abuse Sandhill administered to me under the guise of “therapy”. I feel so ill-equipped to deal with the adult world. Nobody told me I had to make choices as a teenager, because everything at Sandhill was picked for me, while hopped up on weird medication. I faced difficulties in both high school and even college because of the irreversible trauma Sandhill instilled in me."

Thank you for trusting us with your story, and we wish you the best of luck on your healing journey.